Dayton Philharmonic - Epic Journeys
Join the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Jessica Hung.
Event details
* this page may be updated if event is repeated in the future *
Dayton Philharmonic - Epic Journeys
Join the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Jessica Hung.
In June of 2013, the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance and international award-winning composer Dr. Stella Sung were recipients of the Music Alive grant, which commissions Dr. Sung to produce new works for Dayton Ballet, Dayton Opera, and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra as Music Alive Composer-in-Residence for three seasons. For the DPO’s 2014–2015 season she has composed Loco-Motion, a piece that she tells us was “inspired by the idea of a high-speed train and how the view of the outside world rapidly changes as the train speeds towards its destination point. The music constantly shifts in small increments and 'chunks,' and quickly changing rhythms and meters continually provide movement and motion.” All aboard…and hold onto your hats!
The second work on the program has the type of history that could easily confuse even the most precise, clear-headed thinker. It was composed by Max Bruch, a German Romantic composer; dedicated to Pablo de Sarasate, a Spanish Romantic Period composer and violin virtuoso; premiered in England; and arranged in four movements as a fantasy on Scottish folk tunes: "Auld Rob Morris" (a.k.a. "Through the Wood Laddie"), "The Dusty Miller," "I'm A' Doun for Lack O' Johnnie," and "Hey Tuttie Tatie," the tune that is the basis of the Scottish anthem "Scots Wha Hae." Even more confusing is the fact that this homage to Scotland that Bruch composed should come from a man who had never even visited the country. Add to that the fact that the harp, the national symbol of Ireland, has a very prominent part in the piece accompanying the violin soloist! Not to worry; the entire thing comes together as one of the most beloved works in the solo violin repertoire. And DPO Concertmaster Jessica Hung brings her considerable talent to the presentation of a masterful interpretation.
When Dmitri Shostakovich decided to write a large symphony in which he could make fun of the recently deceased Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, he was able to do so only because the stringent policies Stalin had in place censuring Soviet composers for writing music the official censors termed formalistic (read cynical, dissonant, negative) had loosened. For example, when Shostakovich had written his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in the 1930s, Stalin had ordered the official communist party, state-owned newspaper Pravda (which, interestingly, means truth in Russian) to print an editorial entitled "Muddle Instead of Music," decrying Shostakovich’s work. Unflappable, Shostakovich completed his Symphony No. 4 but threw it in a drawer until after Stalin’s passing. Now that Stalin was gone and Shostakovich could move around a bit better politically, Shostakovich wrote his Tenth Symphony, featuring in its allegro section music that is at once Russian, powerful, furious, grim, antagonistic, menacing, and intimidating. Guess which historical figure the music describes?
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